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The Relexification of Locative Constructions in Sranan

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The Relexification of Locative Constructions in Sranan Yakpo, Kofi & Adrienne Bruyn. 2015. Transatlantic patterns: The relexification of locative constructions in Sranan. In Pieter Muysken & Norval Smith (eds.), Surviving the Middle Passage: The West Africa-Surinam Sprachbund, 135–75. (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs (TiLSM) 275). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. AUTHOR MANUSCRIPT VERSION Trans-Atlantic patterns: the relexification of locative constructions in Sranan Kofi Yakpo and Adrienne Bruyn 1. Introduction Sranan and the other creoles of Suriname have long been noted for their use of postpositions in the expression of spatial relations (cf. e.g. Muysken 1987). This characteristic sets these languages apart from the vast majority of Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles, both in the Americas as well as in West Africa. The use of postpositions, some of which are derived from English words for body-parts, is one of the more conspicuous features pointing towards substrate influence in Sranan. Beyond this particularly visible African presence, the grammar of spatial relations in Sranan contains many more features that suggest a diffusion from Africa, and to be more precise, from the Gbe languages, as well as Western Bantu via Kikongo (for the dominant role of the Gbe substrate of Sranan, as well as the secondary role of the Kikongo substrate cf. e.g. Arends 1995; Arends, Kouwenberg, and Smith 1995; Huttar 1981, 1986; Migge 1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2003; Smith 1987; Winford 2000). The affinities of Sranan with these African language(s)/families can be traced in the semantics of individual locative elements. For example, the word baka, derived from Engl. ‘back’ is the regular form employed for the expression of the body part as well as the spatial concept ‘behind’ in Sranan. The semantics of baka overlaps with that of the Gbe (Ewe) item mègbé ‘back’ which is also employed with both senses. There is good reason to assume that such systematic correspondences in meaning and function represent cases of local relexification, that is, of individual forms. The main purpose of this chapter is, however, to show that the participation of relexified Sranan forms like baka in multi-constituent locative constructions constitute cases of pattern relexification. We will show that the concept of pattern relexification can explain the behaviour of Sranan locative elements in instances where an account based on local relexification alone would be stretched to its limits. Pattern relexification makes allowance for differences between Sranan and the substrate languages in the behaviour of individual items. The reason is that the 136 Kofi Yakpo and Adrienne Bruyn Relexification of patterns involves the transfer of lexical properties of individual forms plus their relational properties. A central part of the argument for pattern relexification is that Niger-Congo substrate patterns manifest a large degree of homogeneity, and that this probably facilitated the relexification in Sranan of morphosyntactic blue-prints or skeletons. At the same time, we will see that Sranan locative constructions also reveal the intricate interplay of substrate patterns, patterns inherited from the lexifier English, influence from Dutch, which has served as a superstrate for more than three hundred years, as well as internal development. In this context, we should clarify our use of the terms “lexifier” and “superstrate”. Suriname consitutes a case, in which the lexifier (the language that provides the bulk of the lexicon, and that of the basic lexicon in particular) and the superstrate (the language that has serves as the language of the socially dominant group) of the creoles are not identical (cf. Selbach 2008). The ancestor language of Sranan and the other Surinamese creole languages was formed during a relatively brief period of English colonial rule (cf. Smith, this volume on the early history of Suriname), with English serving as the lexifier, and by default, also as the superstrate language. When the Dutch took control of Suriname in 1667, Dutch replaced English as the colonial language and has thenceforth also served as the superstrate (i.e. socially dominant) language of Suriname. One conclusion drawn from the data presented in this chapter is that the presence of substrate patterns in locative constructions is significant, both in a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. The strong parallels in the grammar of spatial relations between Sranan and Gbe in particular provide further support for the existence of a Transatlantic Sprachbund that unites the Surinamese creoles and the Gbe languages with respect to a substantial number of isoglosses. The Sranan examples in this chapter for which references are not provided stem from a corpus of primary data collected in Suriname and the Netherlands in 2011 by Kofi Yakpo as part of the “Traces of Contact” project of Radboud University Nijmegen. Unless indicated otherwise, examples from the Gbe languages are also from field data, collected by Kofi Yakpo in Ghana and Togo between 2003 and 2011 and speaker intuitions of Kofi Yakpo. Tone-marking is provided for the authors’ primary data and wherever contained in the sources. After providing an overview of locative elements in Sranan in section 2, we describe the expression of three important spatial relations in Sranan and Gbe in section 3. In section 4, we attempt to explain the variation encountered in Sranan locative constructions by additionally drawing on Kikongo data. Section 5 summarizes and systematizes the findings, and section 6 concludes the chapter. The relexification of locative constructions in Sranan 137 2. Locative elements in Sranan This section provides a brief overview of the forms and functions of locative elements in Sranan. The inventory of locative elements (i.e. prepositions and locative nouns) in modern Sranan largely consists of items of English origin, with a minority of Dutch origin. However, these locative elements may appear in constructions that represent substantial departures from the corresponding ones in the English and Dutch. We conclude that the differences between Sranan on the one hand, and the English and the Dutch on the other, are largely due to substrate transfer. We base our analyses on examples from the Gbe languages Ewe (Ghana, Togo), Gen (Togo), Aja (Togo, Benin), Gun (Benin) and Fon (Benin). We should mention here that the historical evidence adduced by the authors mentioned further above suggests that Fon varieties (hence the eastern reaches of the Gbe continuum) constituted the single most important substrates of Sranan, rather than more western varieties like Gen and Ewe. However, we have found it useful to consider corresponding structures from varieties other than Fon because it shows that the templates for expressing spatial relations in all the Gbe languages are virtually identical. This strengthens the argument for a general Gbe origin of the patterns employed to express spatial relations in Sranan, since there is no need to show an exclusive, or even predominant influence of Fon. The Sranan locative elements employed for expressing the basic spatial relations relevant for the discussion are given in 6.1: Table 1. Sranan locative elements Locative element Meaning Source language(s) ini inner part, in ‘in’ (Du./Eng.) na doro outside ‘LOC door’ (Eng.) tapu top, on ‘(on) top (of)’ ondro bottom, under ‘onder/under’ (Du./Eng.) fesi face; in front ‘face’ baka back, behind ‘(at the) back (of)’ fu general location; SOURCE- ‘for’ (Eng.) oriented na general location ‘na’ (Igbo/Port, cf e.g. Parkvall 2001: 108) Some of the forms in the Table have corresponding near-homophones in English and Dutch (i.e. Sranan ondro, English under, Dutch onder). Although simultaneous influences from Dutch and English, hence convergence, are in principle possible, the entire system of specific prepositions is derived from the lexifier English. 138 Kofi Yakpo and Adrienne Bruyn We therefore assume English forms to be the source forms unless the contrary can be proven. The forms ini ‘inside’ and ondro ‘under’) are are derived from the corresponding prepositions in English. The elements baka ‘back, behind’ and tapu ‘top, on’ are only found in complex locative structures in English (e.g. at the back of the car) and have nominal uses (e.g. my back) as well. The element fesi is only found with a locative sense in specialized contexts in English but not with a general meaning as in Sranan (e.g. ‘the face of the building’). The element na doro, literally ‘at the door’ and with the meaning ‘outside’ is a Sranan neologism that has no exact correspondence in English or Dutch. Among its spatial senses, the element fu functions as a general locative preposition to denote a PLACE, however less prominently so than na, which follows below. The preposition fu may also be employed to denote a SOURCE and if this is the case, appear without support from other PATH-denoting locative elements, as in (1). One possible explanation for the PLACE and SOURCE senses of this preposition is that the English prepositions for and from may have converged into fu during the formative period of the language: (1) ala den wroko disi wi leri fu mi papa. all DEF.PL work this 1PL learn ABL 1SG father ‘All these (types of) works we learnt from my father.’ (Sranan; Hart 1996: 17) At the bottom of the table we find the only element without a Dutch or English etymology, namely the general locative preposition na ‘LOC’ (with its modern variant a). Reflexes of this form are present throughout the family of Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles, even if na is not found in all languages. In Sranan, the preposition na ‘LOC’ functions as a general GROUND marker and may introduce participants with PLACE (2), GOAL (3), SOURCE (4) and PATH (5) roles. In the following sections we will see how corresponding forms fulfil very similar functions in the substrate languages of Sranan: (2) mi e tan na boiti.
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